Last Call
by ktface3
Summary: JAM. This is pretty dark and deals with some deep issues, so brace yourself. I wrote this on a whim as a oneshot, but it's slowly turning into a full on story. Review and let me know your thoughts on it.
1. Unlimited Abundance

_Author's note: my hope is that this feels extremely real. I don't want to say much more, because I want to leave it up to interpretation. Please review._

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"What's wrong?" Even though he couldn't see tears on her face, he knew she had been crying. He clenched his fists, hating to see her in pain and wondering who had done this to her. He relaxed his frown, seeing that she had begun to tear up again; a single tear ran down her cheek.

"I just—" she began. She didn't want to get into this with him. Things had been so strange ever since he came back, and she didn't feel like letting him in. A year ago, she would've been falling into his arms and sobbing into his chest, but then again, a year ago she wouldn't have been crying.

"Please tell me," Jim pleaded, his eyes wide with concern. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened, I just—" Screw it, she said to herself. She was going to put her heart out there. "Jim, I feel so alone. I hate coming home to this apartment every night alone, I hate making dinner for myself and having no one to share it with, and I hate having to turn all the lights off… The dark is so isolating."

"Okay," he sighed. "Can I come in?"

Pam responded meekly, "Yes." She opened the door to her apartment wider and he stepped inside. On the coffee table, sat stacks of photo albums, and he guessed that they had made her start to think about how alone she thought she was. He also noticed a glass of wine on the table as well; _that probably did not help_, he thought to himself.

Pam sniffled as she tried to fight back tears. "Wanna sit down?" He took a seat on her couch, and she sat down beside him with a small gap in between them. She didn't know why she had called him; her mom would've been her first choice to call, but it was one in the morning and she was at least two hours away. What could her mom have done for her? No, she wanted someone there with her, and although they had been distant lately, she had guessed he would come as soon as he heard her crying.

"_Jim? Can you come over? I really need someone right now.."_ She didn't have to say anymore than that, because as soon as he had heard those words, he had grabbed his car keys and driven straight over. There were no doubts in his mind of what he had to do, even though he may have had apprehension.

"Okay, do you want to talk about it?" he asked her, praying she would open up to him.

She then asked him a question that had caught him off-guard, "Do you ever think about your own death?"

"Um—"

"I do. I wonder who the hell is going to remember me when I'm gone. I wonder what happens after we die.. I wonder if we can really watch over people from heaven. And.. it just scares me. My own mortality scares me, because…"

Jim stared at her as she glanced down, trying to form the words to what she was thinking. He wanted to tell her that everyone questioned death at one time or another; he had first questioned it after a childhood friend of his, Jason, had died from leukemia, and he still got sharp pains in his stomach every time he thought about it. He wanted to tell her that people would of course remember her after she had died. She clouded _his_ thoughts day and night, and there was no way he could not remember her beautiful smile, her laughter after they played pranks on Dwight, and the way she could always make people feel welcome.

She looked up and saw him gazing intently and continued, "Because I haven't done anything with my life. I'm a receptionist.. and I haven't traveled anywhere. And my art sucks, and.." She shut her eyes tight, trying to hold back the tears. They flowed from her cheeks anyway, "And I don't have any family. No husband, no kids… People need kids to remember them."

He shook his head and wiped a tear from her cheek, "You know that's not true. Pam. Pam—" He took her chin in his hand and made her look at him before he continued: "You will be remembered. Maybe not by the world, maybe not even by children, but.. I promise you, you have touched people's lives that you don't even realize you touched, and they will always remember you—"

She pushed his hands away from her as they tried to wipe away another tear. She was mad now: mad because he always knew what he should say to make her feel better, and she was sick of it. She wondered if he could ever bear his soul to her, or if he would always keep her at arm's length. How the hell had he come to terms with his own death? Did he even know he would die someday too? What made him okay with everything he was saying? She resented how he could be so calm, and she wanted answers.

"How do you know that!" she shouted, and he was startled by how she had raised her voice to him. "And how come you don't think about death? How can you be just, sitting there, telling me all of this when you don't even know for certain! What is going to happen to me after I die, Jim? Tell me!"

"I don't know!" he stood up and shouted back at her, angry that she had wanted him to come over only so she could pick him apart. "I don't—I don't know." He sighed, biting his lip from saying more to her. He thought about Jason again, and this time tears welled up in his eyes; he hadn't cried over him in years, but she had gotten him so worked up that he couldn't help himself.

"You don't think I don't get scared by death?" He sat back down and she glared at him intensely, "Pam, everyone is going to die—everyone. If nothing else, death is the only thing that bonds people together. In the end, we only have each other… to, help each other not be scared… and to remember each other when one of us dies."

She looked sheepishly at her carpeting. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and he shook his head at her, indicating that her apology wasn't necessary. She looked around, noticing that she was standing, and then sat down next to him and watched him wipe his tears on his sleeve.

He glanced up at her and saw that she had clung to his every word, and so he began to tell her: "I had a good friend in elementary school who died. His, name was Jason, and he was diagnosed with leukemia in fourth grade." Jim sniffled and wiped his eyes again, "I remember being really sad that he missed so much class, cause we did everything together.. Then, my mom thought it would be a good experience for me to visit him in the hospital…"

Pam listened empathically as he told her his tale, realizing that he knew what he was talking about because he had been through it. His childhood friend had died, and yet he still had vivid memories of him and talked about him with such emotion in his voice. She could tell he missed him, even after all these years.

"I always wonder what he would've been like if.. if he had had the chance to grow up," Jim looked at her, and saw that her expression matched his: they both looked guilty. "And.. I wonder what was it that chose him to die and not me? Fate?.. God? I mean, what made me so lucky to live?"

She looked down again, now sensing _he_ needed comfort, "You know what's unfair?"

"..Besides what I just said?"

"Yeah… how can there be so much in the world to experience, and yet we could never experience it all?"

For the first time since she had called him crying, a soft smile crept upon his face. "That's not how I see it," he told her as she glanced up, surprised. "See, I like to think of everything as unlimited abundance.. We could never run out of books or movies or experiences, because there is so much out there."

Pam felt the lump in her throat disappear as she thought of this concept. How had she not figured that out, and how had he made it seem that simple? She laughed to herself as she thought about how, no matter what, he always was there to rescue her, even from her own self-destructive thoughts.

She smiled at him and said the only words she thought she could say, "We do have unlimited abundance.. of each other."

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_Reviews greatly appreciated._


	2. Fulfillment

_Author's note: I knew I wasn't quite done with this; I hope this is a good resolution. Let me know!_

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Even though they continued their somewhat morbid conversation, they had managed to calm each other down enough for the discussion to have a sense of tranquility. Pam told him about when she first started to think about death: after seeing news reports about Bosnia and how people were killing each other for what she thought was no reason at all. It hit home for her especially when she saw a girl about her age on the news, crying because her mother had been killed, and it made her realize her own mother would die someday.

"What bothers me more though," she said to him, biting her lip. "Is that I might die and have not accomplished anything I wanted to. After calling off my wedding, I began to think more and more about it. I just kept wondering, what's next in my life? And.." she sighed, realizing it was useless to cry anymore over it, "And I just felt empty inside to not have an answer to that question."

"I know how you feel," he gave her a compassionate look. "Sometimes I think about how useless I am.. I mean, not useless, but.. I wonder about how long I could stay at Dunder-Mifflin.. probably for a long time. And it scares me that I might end up like Michael or Stanley. They are great guys, don't get me wrong, but.. I don't want their lives. I don't want to be stuck in that job forever. I want.. a much different kind of fulfillment." He rubbed his forehead, feeling extremely vulnerable to have shared that with her and hoping she didn't judge him for it.

She looked at him with hesitation, "What does that mean?"

"I want… I want to travel a lot more. My trip last summer made me realize there's a whole lot more out there that I haven't seen, and I want to see it. And.. I want to do more creative stuff. I feel like, I can't just come up with pranks for the rest of my life, and I don't want to see my imagination go to waste."

"You should definitely do that," she smiled at him encouragingly. "You could do so much with that, and I know it would make you feel fulfilled."

He gazed at her in amazement. He wondered how she could just disregard her own feelings of doubt and uncertainty and focus entirely on being receptive to him, and it made him thankful to have her in his life. "What about you? What would make you fulfilled?"

Pam sighed and shook her head; she didn't have the slightest idea of how to answer that question. "I guess," she began to think out loud, "I guess what I always thought would be fulfilling is having kids.. but, I've been rethinking that over the past few months…"

"Yeah…" For the first time in the entire conversation, Jim felt uncomfortable sitting next to her, and so he shifted in his seat to try and ease his tension. In the past, he had entertained daydreams of the two of them getting together someday and having kids, but now the circumstances didn't seem like that was possible. He instead sighed heavily and commented, "You don't.. have to have kids to be fulfilled through kids. You could just, do something for them, like be a volunteer or something."

Pam's eyes lit up. She had never thought about doing something like that, and it made her feel relieved to think she could bond with a child, even if it wasn't her own. "I really like that idea," she told him, and he smiled back at her, happy to have made the suggestion. She then had to ask, "Would you do it with me? Work with kids, I mean."

"Uh, yeah. I guess I could.."

"It would be a great way for you to be creative," she pointed out to him in a sing-song voice, and he laughed slightly at her tone.

"Alright, alright. We'll look into it."

"Good." She smiled at him, and he felt somewhat accomplished to have made her feel better. He sensed their conversation winding down and decided it would be a good time to slip out; after all, they both still had to work the next day.

"Is it 2:30 already?" he asked her, and she glanced at the clock on her wall and gasped that it was so late. "I better go… Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah… Thank you." He smiled at her knowingly, and she blushed, glad that he was willing to drop everything and be with her. They stood up and walked to the door, and then Jim gave her a big hug, taking in the scent of her hair as they held their friendly embrace. They whispered their goodbyes, and he then disappeared into the night.

She sat back down on her couch, her mind running through what had just occurred. She didn't know how he had done it, but he had managed to make her feel at ease, and she smiled as she thought of their pact. She took one of the photo albums off her coffee table and began to flip through it. She sighed and thought about how all those pictures didn't show things she hadn't done in her life, but what she had, and she felt a sense of relief wash over her knowing they would always be there after she was gone.

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_Good resolution? Or does there need to be more? Review please!_


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